


rising tide

by graveExcitement (arachnids)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnids/pseuds/graveExcitement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meenah Peixes is a thief, and it doesn't matter because she's a Beforan, and there are certain privileges for the city of Beforus' inhabitants.</p><p>However, those privileges only go so far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rising tide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jegusismyhomeboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jegusismyhomeboy/gifts).



Meenah likes a good chase.

In an open field, or any other place without obstruction, a chase is only a competition of stamina; a question of whether the chaser or the chased can run for longer. Not really her style. 

This is not an open field. This is the metal jungle, which shapes its inhabitants as much as they shape it.

This is the city of Beforus, and chasing Meenah here, on her home ground, is a mistake a certain gang of ruffians will not live to regret.

Meenah darts down an alleyway, unperturbed by the concrete wall at the end. She runs up the twisting, rusted stairs of a fire escape, taking the narrow steps three at a time. The pounding of feet below her announces her chasers' arrival. She reaches the top of the fire escape, and turns around. The men chasing her have came to a stop at the bottom of the fire escape, looking up at her.

"Where'll you go now, girlie?" one of the men challenges. 

"If I knew your boss was gonna get so worked up about his wife's jewelry, I woulda stolen it sooner!" sneers Meenah. 

"If you give up the gold," the man in front calls, "I don't see why you should have to get hurt." He looks up at her, in his tan overcoat, with a blank expression. Meenah studies his bald head, and smirks.

"If I reely have nowhere to go, I don't sea why you'd try to bargain with me!" Her fingers curl around the railing, cold and rusted though it is. She glances down to admire her hands - gold rings adorning every dark finger. Then she grins down at the men below her - a group of four, following the lead of the man pretending to bargain with her. They mostly wear suits with varying degrees of respectability, as well as coats, which is understandable enough. Beforus gets chilly at night - but Meenah doesn't.

"Besides," she says, "by this point I can't even tell which of this stuff belonged to your wife!"

"Get her," the bald man says. 

Before the words are out of his mouth, his men are pounding up the steps, and Meenah is scrambling up the rest of the building, skittering up the bricks until she has clambered onto the roof. She hears the creaks and groans of the fire escape below her, as Baldy's gang relentlessly pursues her. 

"You're pretty good trackers," she calls down to them. "But you've forgotten somefin! I _live_ here! And you don't!"

The fire escape, familiar and trusted and true, groans, and Meenah hears the scrape of metal on metal for a few tantalizing moments. The men on the fire escape pay it no attention. 

Meenah spits on their heads, and the fire escape, after long years of rusting away, crumbles and crashes to the alleyway below. The men's screams and shouts are short-lived, and she smiles down at the wreckage of the fire escape covering the narrow alleyway.

"Thanks for the gold, suckerfish!" she shouts down. She expects no response, and there is none. The thrill of the chase ebbs, but she is still left with the taste of victory - hardly a consolation prize... not to mention the gold, of course.

She turns and jogs across the rooftop, smirking all the while. They had been foolish men, she thinks to herself. It is folly to fight a Beforan in Beforus, unless you reside there yourself. 

It is dusk by the time she is back on the streets, and she admires the glint of the streetlights off of her new rings. They aren't as shiny as all the rest; from the looks of it, the woman who previously owned these rings didn't love them as much as she does. Meenah doesn't mind, though - it is only fitting that gold be in the hands - or rather, on the fingers - of someone who can appreciate it.

One of her rings is loose around her ring finger, and Meenah decides that it is the one she will sell. She will have to make it shine before she sells it, however, or she'll have to steal more in order to pay the rent. Not that stealing is a hardship, of course, but she would hate to exhaust the nearby suburbs and towns of gold. And she doesn't steal from Beforans - not unless any of them steal from her. 

Three blocks after she decides which ring to sell, she notices she has a tail. There is an abandoned building on her right, probably fit to collapse if she doesn't tread lightly.

A thief knows how to be light on her feet. She slips through the open door, barely on its hinges, to find herself surrounded by books.

Immediately on her left are haphazard stacks of books; to her right are slightly more organized shelves, some seemingly covered in dust. Part of the ceiling appears to have caved in, and there is a scattering of rubble. 

"Can I help you?" 

The voice is sweet, bright, shining - everything this library lacks. Meenah turns her gaze to the speaker, and raises her eyebrows. A teenage girl sits at the librarian's desk, with dirty blonde hair and a dress of deep blue, with faint tracings of spiderwebs. 

Meenah walks towards the desk, and the girl smiles up at her. "If you can't kelp your own library, how can you kelp me?"

"I am but one librarian," says the girl. "I can't manage everything myself. But I can find you a book." 

"What's your name, gill?"

"Aranea." Her smile widens. "My name is Aranea."

"Meenah. Can't say I've read a book in a whale," she admits. "Why don't you surprise me?"

"It would be my most esteemed pleasure," says Aranea, and she stands and kicks at the all-too-real spiderwebs which, Meenah sees, have grown around her feet and ankles. Before Meenah can ask, Aranea moves to one of the stacks of books, running her long, unadorned fingers over dusty spines. Her movement is graceful, like a fish through a river.

Then the door flings open, and Meenah has rather little time for admiration of grace. When she turns around, at first Meenah only sees a figure in the darkness, before he stalks inside. Under the failing lights of the library, Meenah can see that he is bruised and bloody - and familiar. The coat is one she last saw falling to the dirty alleyway ground, and it looks much the worse for wear, as does its owner. This close, she can see that this one is hardly a man at all, just a boy, with hair slicked back and a sneer to rival her own. 

Just a boy - to the extent that she is just a girl. She grins her shark grin. "Back for round two, mother glubber?"

"You tried to kill me," says the boy. "I am a Beforan - more than that, an Ampora. My line has lived here for hundreds of years, and you think the city will kill me, Cronus Ampora?"

"Beach," says Meenah, with an eyeroll, "the Peixes rule the roost."

"You gave up protection right when you tried to kill me," Ampora says, snarling. "You'll die now, no longer who you are or where you live!" 

"You can try!" shouts Meenah. "It's a pity you won't live to regret it!"

"Be quiet," says a voice, cold as steel. It takes a moment for Meenah to remember Aranea, who stands stock still, holding a thick, dusty tome. "This is a library."

Lightning quick, Ampora pulls a pistol from his coat and points it at Meenah. "Peixes or not," he says, "you gave up protection. The bullet will strike true." He gives Aranea nary a glance. 

Meenah sneers. "Are you so quick to lose your own protection, buoy? I know the Amporas. You live on your fancy boat, docked here in Beforus, don't ya? Think you're so high and mighty. But if you're a true Beforan, then," she narrows her eyes, "why were you working for a thug like Baldy?"

Ampora flushes, his face turning an ugly puce. "Shut up," he snarls, "shut up, I'll shoot, swear to God." He flicks off the safety, and Meenah sees his finger tense around the trigger.

"I know all aboat the Amporas," Meenah continues, wild and grinning, "their pride, their history... but it's thanks to you I know about the stick up their bassholes!"

"Just SHUT UP!" Ampora roars, and his finger tightens, tightens around the trigger -

With an almighty crash, the ceiling above his head gives way, burying Cronus Ampora in books and rubble. A book with a golden cover and fuchsia spine lands at Meenah's feet.

"I found you your book," says Aranea, softly. "I think you'll like it. It's an exploration of the history of Beforus and the development of the city's tacit rules, and how they change over time, to adapt to the current era."

Meenah raises an eyebrow and glances, pointedly, at the now still pile of books and ceiling and Ampora. 

Aranea's lips curve in a smile. "You have to be careful, in a library," she says. "Being loud is... unwise. If he had fired that thing, most likely the entire library would have collapsed."

"That woulda been a shame," says Meenah, who stoops to pick up the book.

"Also," says Aranea pleasantly, "if you don't return a book, I'm told you're destined to die of a thousand paper cuts... in some extremely uncomfortable places."

"Whale, I guess that's not a fate I look forward to. Maybe you should come with me. Make sure I don't forget the due date, and such."

"Oh?" Aranea steps over a bit of rubble, approaches Meenah. "And if I told you my duties as librarian came first..."

"That would be a shame," says Meenah, and meets Aranea next to the pile of books, some unfortunately spattered with blood. Meenah cups Aranea's face with the hand not holding her borrowed book, and bends down so that she may press her lips to hers. Aranea responds eagerly, pressing her body against Meenah's and humming into the kiss, the warm press of lips against lips.

"It would be my pleasure," whispers Aranea, and Meenah smiles.


End file.
